Chris Pratt on 'Guardians of the Galaxy' weight loss: 'You could do it'

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“Guardians of the Galaxy” is arguably the most-talked about project — film or television — to come out of San Diego Comic-Con. The cast made a surprise appearance at the convention and showed off the first footage of James Gunn‘s comic book space epic during Marvel’s July 20 Comic-Con panel. Heading the cast was the Guardians’ fearless leader, Chris Pratt, who recently showed off his toned physique for his role as Star-Lord.

Following the panel, Zap2it had a chance to talk to the “Parks and Recreation” actor about getting ready for his biggest film role to date. He admitted that he was a bit surprised by how overwhelmingly positive the response to his Instagram photo was.

“That was something else. I’ve never really felt any douchier than the day after I sent that photo out and I had all my friends tearing me apart on that one,” he says. “But yeah, I guess I was. For the most part, it was pretty positive. I haven’t always been fat, but I’ve been fat for the last eight years or something, which is really fun and really great. I love eating food and drinking beer and having fun with my life. I was also kind of depressed a little bit when I was fat and there’s probably people out there who can agree and understand what that feels like.”

He continues, “I’ll tell them, ‘Hey, if you just bust your a** and get after it, all it takes is like six months really.’ Six months flies by whether you’re working out every day or whether you’re not, so if you feel compelled to do something about it, take some action and get in shape, do it. You can do it. You could. You really could. You could do it in six months and all you have to do is just book a Marvel movie and have a deadline that’s like, ‘If you don’t [lose weight] then you might get fired,’ and then it’s easy.”

“Guardians of the Galaxy” is the first new standalone superhero franchise to be introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe since “Captain America,” and Pratt says that he’s really excited to make the role of Star-Lord his own.

“There have been a lot of incarnations of this character over the years and I think what’s nice about James Gunn, who’s directing this, is he really wants this to be an organic and sort of real character that I can breath my own spirit into,” Pratt says. “It’s going to be unique because most people don’t know who I am. Hopefully there’ll be a little bit of me in there, and that will make it different than if it wasn’t me.”